WeVideo for Android review:

A quick-and-dirty video editor for Android

Hot Products

The GoodFor a mobile video editor WeVideo has an incredibly simple interface with basic tools that work well. Plus, it syncs to the cloud, so you can access and even edit your projects from your computer.

The BadThe app lacks any sort of audio-editing features, which makes it almost impossible to sync with music. Also, a tool for adjusting video and audio speeds would be a welcome addition, as would be customizable themes.

The Bottom LineFor a dead simple editor that can put together video clips in a flash, WeVideo impresses. But know that it lacks any truly powerful tools to make granular edits. For those, you'll have to upload your project to the Web and finish from a computer.

CNET Editors' Rating

Review Sections

With the WeVideo app for Android, you can quickly edit and publish video clips while on the go. The app even syncs to your WeVideo account in the cloud, so you can continue your work from a browser on your desktop computer.

If you don't already have a WeVideo account, the app will create one for you when you first log in. By default, you get a free Lite account, which comes with 5GB of storage and 15 minutes of export time per month. It also caps your export resolution at 480p, but you can pay a small fee to upgrade this on an ad hoc basis. And if you want higher capacities and resolution for all of your videos, you can always upgrade to a paid account at any time.

WeVideo is a quick and dirty editor that lets you chop up, stylize, and publish your video to the Web.
Screenshot by Jaymar Cabebe/CNET

Perhaps the best thing about WeVideo for Android is the app's interface. It's as simple as it gets and should be easy to pick up even for those without any video editing experience at all. Conveniently, the app opens up to your Media Library, which shows off all of the videos, images, and audio files stored on your device, so there's no need to import anything into the app before editing. The bad thing here is that your Media Library will not show you any media that you have uploaded directly to your cloud account from a desktop, so in your mobile video projects, you'll only be able to use what's stored locally.

To get started editing, all you have to do is tap and drag any item to the timeline at the bottom. You can drag a series of videos or still images or a combination of both. And if you need to, you can easily reorder the items with a simple tap-and-drag gesture as well. From there, you can tap any item on your timeline to perform your micro-edits. You'll be able to trim clips to an appropriate length, adjust their volume, and even add captions. The last step here is to add an audio track to play over your footage. Unfortunately, though, the WeVideo app doesn't let you edit or trim your audio in any way, which makes it almost impossible to try to sync your video to a soundtrack. So, if that's what you're looking to do, you'll have to hit the desktop.

Once you're done putting your video together, you can stylize your footage with one of WeVideo's included themes. In all there are 24, each of which adds different color filters, borders, and even transitions to your video. The available themes don't offer much in the way of customization, but it's still nice to have at least these two dozen templates available. And ultimately, if you want to get more granular with your effects and edits, you can always upload your project from your mobile device to your cloud account and edit from the full Web version of WeVideo.

Finally, there's the Publish screen, where you'll find options to save your video as well as share on YouTube or Facebook. In my tests, I was able to share to YouTube, but for some reason the Facebook share didn't work, even after multiple attempts. Hopefully, this little bug gets fixed in an update. By default, the app will always save to your WeVideo account in the cloud when you publish, and you can check the option to save a copy locally as well.

Jaymar Cabebe covers mobile apps and Windows software for CNET. While he may be a former host of the Android Atlas Weekly podcast, he doesn't hate iOS or Mac. Jaymar has worked in online media since 2007.
See full bio